1. What does the name "Eight to the Bar" mean?
The term "Eight to the Bar", contrary to popular belief, has nothing to do with 8 people or a bar where you drink. Instead, it's a musical term which refers to a style of boogie woogie piano popular in the forties where the piano player would play 8 beats per musical bar in his or her left hand. There was a hit song during that time (covered by the Andrews Sisters, among others) about such a piano player and it was called "Beat Me Daddy, Eight to the Bar." It's from this song that we got our name.

2. Who's the original member/s?
Cynthia Lyon started the band in 1975. The original lineup has long since grown up and moved on, but Cynthia, by her own admission, is a "lifer".

3. Do you perform at weddings?
Yes, we do lots of weddings. If you look at our calendar, you'll notice the word "private" at least once a week. Most of the time when it says "private", it's a wedding.

4. Do you play material other than swing at weddings?
Yes, at weddings we play a mix of Motown, classic r&b, standards, and some funk (unless the client prefers that we play exclusively swing material). We have a wedding demo package that includes a demo CD and list of our repertoire for weddings as well as our performance schedule and pricing.

5. What is swing?
In layman's terms, swing is a style of music characterized by a specific rhythm pattern. It's not a tempo- a song can be slow or fast and still be swing, but it must have a certain rhythm pattern. The easiest way to describe this pattern is to say that the bass player typically plays quarter notes that are not syncopated and the drummer must be able to play a "ding ding a ding" pattern on the cymbals.

7. Do you travel and if so how far?
Yes, we love to travel. We've performed in England, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, Austria, Switzerland, the Carribean, and coast to coast in the US.